WhatsApp said on Wednesday it is launching an AI chat function known as Incognito Chat that is built to allow users to converse privately with Meta AI—such that Meta itself cannot access the questions or answers. The feature is based on WhatsApp’s Private Processing scheme, which debuted a year ago and already underlies WhatsApp’s existing AI features, including message summarization and composition tools.
The idea of Incognito Chat is to create a way for WhatsApp to offer AI chat integration that does not conflict with the communication platform’s commitment to end-to-end encryption, the privacy scheme in which only direct participants in a conversation can read messages or hear a call. Most generative AI platforms now offer some type of “incognito mode,” but these features are usually designed to separate users from the questions they ask and the answers they receive rather than including a mechanism to entirely shield those questions and answers from the provider’s view. With Incognito Chat, WhatsApp will only be able to see that an account used the feature, according to Meta.
Meta invites third-party audits and vulnerability reports on Private Processing and says Incognito Chat itself is going to be subject to expert oversight so third parties can verify that code Meta ships for the feature is durable. But as with any cloud system, chatting with Meta AI on WhatsApp will ultimately involve trusting Meta in the same way using WhatsApp for communication does.
“A big part of our work at WhatsApp relates to when there’s a perfect solution that’s very hard to use—how do you give people other options that still bring them the privacy benefits?” WhatsApp head Will Cathcart tells WIRED. “With AI, from a privacy standpoint, you’d want to run everything on your own phone, but the benefit of these models is using larger and larger compute to make them work. So the challenge is how do you build something in a data center that’s not going to fit in your pocket but has the same types of security properties. Incognito Chat is kind of like we’re running a giant phone for AI and we don’t have the passcode.”
Incognito chats are ephemeral by default and will disappear once your conversation is over. Cathcart says that WhatsApp may work on developing an option within Private Processing to retain some or all of these conversations over time for users who want that history. And for now, Incognito Chat is text-only. Cathcart says support for image processing and voice recognition is in the works. Reducing latency in any way possible, including by optimizing routing, has been key to making Incognito Chat usable given the extra demands of running AI within the secure cloud environment of Private Processing.
“Incognito Chat handles all AI inference in a Trusted Execution Environment that ensures your messages are not accessible to us,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Wednesday. “The conversations on your phone also disappear when you exit the session. This is different from other disappearing AI products where your conversations logs often remain on other companies’ servers for many months.”
Meta is also adding Incognito Chat as an option in the Meta AI app.
Another feature announced on Wednesday alongside Incognito Chat is “Side Chat with Meta AI,” which integrates the ability to essentially DM with Meta AI about a text chat you’re having with another person or group of people. The idea is to give users a way to ask AI for restaurant suggestions or about a movie your friends are discussing without essentially leaking these locations or interests to a company.
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